Delmar Beard, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, World War II, Korea, Vietnam

Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Delmar Beard. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two and a US Army veteran of the Korean War and the Vietnam War. During World War II, he served a board an LST in the Pacific and took part in the landings at both Ewojima and Okinawa. After the war, mister Beard left the Navy and joined

I was born in North Carolina, and my dad was a farmer in Cumberland County, just outside of Fort Bragg and Fedville, North Carolina.

Beard was fifteen years old and spending his Sunday morning as he normally did when he first heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty one.

I was a church It was only Sunday, and we heard that did at bum Pearl Harbor. That's why I first heard of Pearl Harbor.

At that time, Beard was too young to enlist, but a couple of years later, on one of the most pivotal days of the war in Europe, he got his chance to join the war effort. Not only did Beard live in North Carolina, he lived very close to Fort Bragg, one of the most well known US Army installations. But Beard and a buddy said no to the Army at that time shows the Navy.

Well, I guess one of the reasons I joined the Davy. My brother was already in North Africa and I was born raised right there where I could see the per trooper jump on Fort Bragg, and I had a lot of contact with the Army, and so I said, my buddy and I were, let's go into Navy. So it was just something that we decided to do that we had seen enough of army in Fort Bragg there for sixteen years. I was born in over d Day in Raleigh, North Carolina, and went to Camp Perry, Virginia, which was

It was in Algiers, Louisiana that Beard got a signed to the LST, on which he would serve for the remainder of the war. And he and the rest of the crew got a good taste of life aboard the LST as they sailed it from the Gulf coast to Hawaii.

Well, the unit that I was signed to, if I got to Algiers, there were thirteen of us went aboard LST seventy one five and the second day there we headed through the Panamaca now to Hawaii. And after we get out of Hawaii, we did a lot of praction WITHST, beaching on beaches for training, and then I went to gunners mate school to learn to clean and operate and load the twin forty that I served also on LST.

We'll hear much more about those twin forties when Beard describes his experience off the coast of Okinawa. But he did give us some insights into how the guns served as the most potent weapons of board the LST.

The twin forty, well, it was the biggest guns we had had them on the bow and the fan tail of the ship. And as I say, we had gunners mate that took care of him. But I went to school for a week to learn how to do certain things because I was signed to a twin forty in case of Morocco the mortar attax or or earlier air at tax or anything like that, and I served over that as an extra duty.

And when asked if he was a quick study on those guns, Beard said, his years growing up on the farm came in very handy for this assignment.

My first gun was a gun I purchased at age fifteen, big old double bar shotgun, so I was used. I was used to shooting.

As for the ship itself, Beard explained the design of the LST and how it was used.

Well, the first thing is flat bottom, almost flat bottom, roll over and pick up water and roll over the other side. It's just like that. We have a what we call a port side on the starboard side and a big tank dick put the holding ammunition and trucks and tanks and all of that. And I forgot how long it is, but we had a crew of one hundred and nineteen.

For the record. The standard LST in World War Two was three hundred and twenty eight feet long and fifty feet wide at the beam. After weeks and months of training, by early nineteen forty five, it was time to get into the war, leaving Hawaii with an eventual destination of Ewojima. Delmar Beard tells us about a couple of stops along the way and what it was like coming ashore on Ewojima as the battle was underway.

After we left and trained in Hawaii, an early you where we took off and we went for our base port that we operated out love mostly was Saipan and Tinian. That's where the planes took off for the atomic bum plane that took off later on. But we trained there and after there a short while we picked up part of the fourth Marine Division and we headed for Ewagima.

The horrors endured by the Marines on the black ash beaches of Iwo Jima are well documented. The Navy service members unloading personnel vehicles, fuel, ammunition, weapons, and more did not face the same intensity from the Japanese, but they were not immune from deadly fire either.

I came that close to being hit. I was lined up. I didn't have two hours in the office, but I wanted to be out of it. But the guy marine was facing me here and I was here with passing the box ammunition out, putting it on the beach, and he got a bullet right in the back. He was about here and I was here. Two of us. We took him, drug him up on the beach and hollered medic. Well,

Beard says he heard constant reminders that the Japanese bullets were not far away.

Oh yeah, yeah, we could hear it ricksheaning off the side of the ship being be you know. But if they were shooting more seemed like at the ship than there was us in the line hoping that he could do something damage there. We could hear there was not that much fire coming down there because they were business shooting the ones on the Marines on the beach.

Even for those fortunate enough to survive the deadly enemy fire, the trauma of the experience could still be overwhelming. Beard remembers one sailor who had to be evacuated.

We had some that went, some that couldn't. We got shell shark. We had the kid got so shell shark. It took four people to hold it, and then all we could do is is take our LCVP and took him over to the hospital ship. It was the USS Mercy, which is still operating.

While Beard only ventured on shore far enough to unload some flies, he was still perfectly positioned to witness two of the most indelible moments of the battle. The first, of course, was the raising of the American flag atop Mount Surabachi. But he also had a front row seat as the US Marines used their flamethrowers to force the Japanese out of their underground fortresses.

And we could see where we was at was real good position. We could see the Marines going up Mount Sarabachi with the flame flowers in the cage, and as a Japanese got on fire, they run out and rolled into Volcadi Cash trying to put it down. But on Mount Clara Bachi, for as I know, there was only four or five people that surrendered and captured, and they built a little fence right there above our ship, and that's where they was at when the war ended.

You Beard is grateful for certain things that happened at Ewojima or didn't happen. He says, the Navy did not have to endure many Japanese attacks from the air, you know.

Surprisedly, in Ewajima, we didn't have a lot of air raid because we had two aircraft carriers out in the ocean a little ways from the island, and they intercepted the planes before they got in. Only two or three got in, So far as the navy go, we didn't have too much problems with aircraft in Ewajima.

That's Delmar Beard. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two and the battles of Ewojima and Okinawa. He later served in the US Army in both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In just a moment, Beard takes us into the intense combat he faced against the Japanese at Okinawa. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicle.

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This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this edition is del Mar Beard. He's a US Navy veteran of World War II and the critical battles of Ewojima and Okinawa. He later served many years in the US Army, including in a non combat role during the Korean War. He then rose to the rank of command

Our nick trip because the airstrip was quite bummed the runways. We went back to Taipan and we picked up a Navy construction cartgage steal cartigated to lay on and make the runways where the planes could land. And then we went back and got another marine unit, mostly medical. A lot of them was medical to take care of the people and the bodies and what not.

And after that third and final drop off, and while the fighting was still raging on ewo Jima, Delmar Beard and other Navy personnel were already getting prepared for the next massive invasion.

We made a trip to the Philippines right quick, then came back to Taipan. Then we picked up the troops for the invasion of Okinawa.

As Beard mentioned earlier, the Japanese air resistance at ewo Jima was quite limited. At Okinawa, as Allied forces moved even closer towards the Japanese mainland. He says, the enemy air raids were very intense.

Now, Okanawa, as far as navy was, was worse worse than eve Rejima because we had the damn many air raids. We had air raids every day, and there was so many we couldn't get into unload our ammunition. We sat out there with a shipbload of ammunition and hearks hain gas with air raids every day dropping all around. We had one drop down between us and the destroyer that got hit by a plane with twenty I think there

And he says the Japanese consistently brought air raids and kamikazi attacks in the middle of the night. Beard says, you could almost set your watch by it.

Every night. It seemed like at fifteen minutes after two o'clock in the morning we had air raids, And I guess that was a time thing. Like when they left Japan to ride there and they writhed about a quarter after two, about six nights in a row.

The American sailors soon got wise to the schedule of Japanese attacks, so much so that they didn't even bother to change clothes when they went to bed.

It of her, the people didn't even take the clothes off. They have just a shoes because they knew there's gonna be an air rage after two. If you was on duty, I didn't attend guard, but because of a job, except during combat combat, I had to I understand myttire. And if you got off at twelve, you might as well just lay up there? Would you close them? Because you had to get up a quarter after two?

And that's when Delmar Beard leapt into action to operate those twin forties, the forty millimeter twin barrel anti aircraft guns that he learned quickly thanks to his proficiency with firearms while growing up on his father's farm.

The twin foarders we had at that time. We had a porter and a trainer, and then we had two people in the gun tub where the ammunition was, and David hand it up to me and Vernon Law, who was the gunner's mate, and we would push him down into the chamber and shoot him.

Yeah, he says, despite the threat of Japanese attacks, he and the other gunners got into an efficient groove of loading and firing those twin forties.

It been hard and you and hear you raige you subisi prak fast as you could to load that then and ever third bullet shale is a tracer and you could see word's going.

That's Delmar Beard. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two and the battles of Ewojima and Okinawa. He later served for twenty two years in the US Army and was deployed to both Korea and Vietnam. Later in our discussion, Beard will tell us about his command in Vietnam and the challenges he dealt with during some of the toughest fighting of the war. He will also share his advice with young adults and young service members in particular.

Well, it was quite a show, a particular at night seeing all those bullets go up for planes. Most everything that we did, ninety some percent was at night. We had a few daytime attacks. The comic Causa that hit

The battle also stays with Beard in another way, as you can tell, perhaps by the volume of his voice, he struggles to hear well, and part of that is due to a military oversight towards Beard and many other gunners during World War Two.

The trouble wiz that there are me. Your Navy did not issue troop here in age until Vietnam, so so in World War Two in Korea we didn't have here in age.

Beard just gave us an excellent description of his actions fighting off Japanese air raids and Kamakazi's suicide bombings. Ewojima is often referred to as the bloodiest battle in the Pacific because of the incredibly high casualty rate for American forces. Nearly seven thousand Americans died on Ewojima, an island of

We made about three trips to Okinawa. The second one there was another island called i he Shima. We were going to have an attacked on that, and we went over there and they were bumming it and they were ruckus was going in on it. The Marie went in. No Japanese. The ages of the island said they moved out two days ago, and they moved out. I guess at night to the other islands where there was fighting going on somewhere. I know where they got out, but they say they left the island. And then then we

The Battle of Okinawa was one of the last major battles in the Pacific Theater of World War two. The war came to an end just two months later after the US drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese announced their surrender just six days after the second blast,

We will own our way to how Waiiat and we were told at that time we fought with having invade Japan, we will own our way to pick up troops. Forty invasion of Japan. And then we heard the first toomaic Oabama was dropped, and then we heard the second was dropped on our way to Hawaii, and then we heard the japan had surrendered. He said, oh boy, we're gonna

After the war, Beard came home and eventually left the Navy, but it wasn't long before he was back in uniform, this time as an enlisted man in the US Army. He joined the Army on Labor Day nineteen forty eight. Just a couple of years later, Beard found himself back at war, this time in Korea. However, in that conflict, he served in a non combat role, working mostly in finances for the army. But as years passed, Beard started to focus again on combat and quickly rose in the

I was the command sergeant major. I made command Target major, but as soon as almost it open. I was one of the youngest command sergeant majors in the Army. I made it when I just had fifteen year servers and my unit was signed to the first cab Division feel Our Chillery in n k and we had firing batters from there to the DMZ.

Nineteen sixty seven and sixty eight were some of the toughest years of the Vietnam War, and Beard definitely dealt with his share of tragic moments. You just heard him explain the gun batteries he commanded. However, one night enemy forces infiltrated the perimeter of one of those batteries.

Okay what it was with Derick quinnyon and they came in and did Viet Kung cut the wire and crawled in under the wire and started shooting, and we killed every one of them there was. There was over one hundred of them came in on our little fire batter.

The Vietcong forces were all eliminated that night, but not before thirteen Americans were killed. Beard got the news the next morning and immediately went to the site of the sneak attack along with the colonel he served under.

I wasn't with him, I was in base camp well. First. The first Calves Division was located between Cambodia and Quinnyon. We caught a chopper the colonel now and flew up there earlier the next morning. We didn't know it to I didn't know it until earlier the next morning. They told me real quick that that we had a bunch of guys killed. The colonel said, get ready, we're going to fly up there, and we went. We him and I flew up there to see nothing we could do.

The other difficult moment from Vietnam that clearly stays with Delmar Beard is the death of that same colonel who was also lost in a shocking manner.

I hate to say it. He was a real nice colonel. I enjoyed working for him, but he was sort of a glory on him. And the WARN officer flew up to Touriwa and there was an infiltration there. The vietnase was only on the base and he told the WARN officer to let's laying down there in the island. And the one officer told him, you don't want to land down there. The viat COR's down there, he said, I said to land, And as soon as he landed and hit the four, he got a bullet right in the head.

With roughly a quarter century of service in the Navy and Army combined, there as much for Delmar Beard to be proud of, but he quickly points to his time in combat, both in World War Two and Vietnam as the most meaningful for him.

You had to say it was being even Jima, Korea and Oakland, not career so much because I was in base camp and in Korea, I had an administrative job and headquarters. In Korea, I had no combat. But if Eva, Jima, Oklanawa and First Calf Division was the thing I was most proud of that I served in combat.

His advice for young people and especially young service members is to meet as many people and forge as many professional relationships as possible, because he says that will benefit you throughout your career. He says, even eighty years after World War Two, he's still giving that advice.

It's funny that you asked that. Being Navy, I went up and talked to the Navy, get people to hear from Norfolk, the captain, the lieutenant, and they listed me in and I told them all about a Korea and what we did in Vietnam, and they were wonderful why they sent us to such meetings that in this we could be back doing our job. I said, you don't know how important it is to get out to know people because you don't know how much they can help

And Beard says, despite all the difficulty and the harrowing moments he faced, he's very thankful to have served the United States in uniform.

I've enjoyed my service. I enjoyed everything about it. I had a good twenty six year career, and if I had to do it over a good again.

That's del Mar Beard. He's a US Navy veteran of World War Two and the critical battles of Ewojima and Okinawa. He later joined the US Army, served an administrative role in theater during the Korean War, and later rose to command sergeant major and was in charge of a series of gun batteries during his tour in Vietnam from nineteen